


tell me why my gods look like you

by sassymajesty



Series: clexaweek19 [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Clexaweek2019, F/F, Nipples
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassymajesty/pseuds/sassymajesty
Summary: Clarke has a due date looming over her head like a dark cloud and no model in sight to help her with this project. She's asked every single female friend she has, but not even saying it's for charity convinced anyone.So when Octavia says she might know someone willing to show her their breasts, Clarke doesn't even blink.





	tell me why my gods look like you

**Author's Note:**

> Saying I'm _late_ for clexaweek is the understatement of the year. But I fell in love with the prompts and, even if the week has come and gone a long while ago, I'll still post for it. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> You can find the moodboard for this story in [here](https://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/post/186220035993)!

Beggars can’t be choosers, and you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Clarke has a due date looming over her head like a dark cloud and no model in sight. By now, she’s gone from asking every female friend she has to help her in this project – saying that  _ it’s for charity _ didn’t work – to calling up anyone who might know someone who’d be willing to do this, even if she had to pay them.

When Clarke applied to work with Keep A Breast Foundation, she thought she’d be helping someone else make a breast cast, and that she’d have a model that the organization had chosen already. She didn’t dare to dream they’d ask  _ her _ to paint a whole cast herself – that honor was reserved for well renowned artists, not someone who’s just starting to make it as one. And she definitely did not expect that she’d have to do it all alone, from the breast cast to painting it.

But it’s for charity, and it’s a foundation that holds a very special place in her heart. Clarke doesn’t mind the extra work, actually basks in it, in the knowledge that every step of the way will have her touch, that this piece will be hers and hers only.

She knows how to do the casting, she knows how to create the cast of the breast, and she knows what she wants to paint. She just needs a model.

Her excitement had slowly but certainly shifted into anxiety and dread when not a single woman she knew was willing to get their breasts immortalized into a sculpture that would be auctioned and help young women who can’t pay for treatment. 

Clarke is seriously considering the logistics of plastering her own damn boobs – they’re pretty great boobs, if she’s being honest, but taking the cast off on her own would be a nightmare – when Octavia calls her.

“ _ Hey, so, _ ” Octavia bursts right into a conversation the moment Clarke taps her screen to take the call, fumbling with her shoulder bag and almost hitting herself in the face with her portfolio case as she tries to keep up her pace, “ _ About that boobies cast thing– _ ”

“Did you remember how much you love me and will model for me?” Clarke interrupts her once she gets a better hold on her phone, or rather just uses her shoulder to keep it in place while still trying to keep a hold on her case. Who the hell thought fit to make portfolio cases so damn clunky.

“ _ Please _ ,” Octavia chuckles in her ear, “ _ You know the only person keeping these breasts is Lincoln and I’m not sharing them. But I might have someone. _ ”

Clarke doesn’t even bat an eye. “I’ll take it,” she says firmly, resuming her fast pace once she joists her bag back to her shoulder and holds her phone with her hand. She’s pretty sure she hit someone with her case, but she only realizes it when she’s too far down the block to apologize.

“ _ I didn’t even tell you who it is _ ,” Octavia mentions, laughter still coloring her voice. Clarke can hear the faint sounds of gloves hitting sandboxes in the background, past the soft mocking of her friend’s, and she winces when she remembers the Muay Thai class she signed up for at the gym Octavia works at, the date coming and going without her noticing it.

“I don’t care. I just need someone with boobs,” Clarke says, slightly out of breath as she jaywalks, half heartedly jogging the last quarter of the busy avenue. She doesn’t have time to wait for the green light to turn red. “I’m a week away from my deadline, I just need to get the casting done.”

“Well, you’re lucky I know a great soul who’s willing to show you her boobs. For  _ charity _ ,” Octavia puts an unnecessary emphasis on the last word, and if she weren’t in such a hurry, Clarke would call her out on it. She may or may not have said her project was for charity over and over (and over) again, until the word lost all sense to anyone she pestered about doing this with her. “There’s this girl who comes to the gym at the most ungodly hours to train and I’m usually the only one here, so we end up sparring together a lot. You should see her hook, Clarke. She hit me square in the jaw the other day and I almost thanked her–

Leave it to Octavia to get a girl crush on someone who could beat her up. Before she gets so far down the rabbit hole of jabs and hooks and terms that barely make sense that it’s impossible to bring her back, Clarke clears her throat, interrupts her, “O? Can she do it?”

“Right,” Octavia pauses, giving herself a second to recollect her thoughts and find the thread she had lost. “I mentioned how desperate you are and the whole charity thing to Lexa when we were sparring this morning and she got all interested, even took a break to look up the foundation.” The surprise in Octavia’s voice washes over Clarke – this warrior girl is  _ genuinely _ interested in the work the foundation is doing, more than just doing it as a favor or any other reason she might have, “She said she’ll do it, no problem. I know it’s the Keep A  _ Breast _ foundation, but focus on getting her abs. They’re honestly mind blowing.”

For the first time in almost a month, Clarke takes a deep breath and feels her lungs filling with fresh air, instead of worry and anxiety.

“That’s great, O. Thanks so much,” Clarke lets all her gratitude and genuine relief pour into her words, not even bothering to tease Octavia about talking so fondly about someone who isn’t Lincoln’s abs. In the sudden lightness that has filled her chest, it takes her a moment too long to realize the building she’s supposed to be at has come and gone, and she backtracks her steps, “I needed to be at a meeting two minutes ago. Can you just send her to my place tomorrow around two?”

She can’t pinpoint why exactly she’s breathless – the over-caffeinated speed walk she’s done from her studio to this building, the opportunities the door she walks through holds, or the utter joy of finally,  _ finally _ finding her model.

Octavia hums her answer at first, giving Clarke time to check in with the receptionist and drag her portfolio case closer to the elevator doors. “Yeah, I’ll check with her, but you don’t want to meet her first before she takes off her shirt for you?”

“O, this is hardly a sexy thing, believe me,” she says while pressing the elevator button a few too many times, nervous energy crawling up her back again, slowly but surely. She distracts herself for a moment, thinking about the mess her apartment will be after she’s done making a cast out of a stranger’s breasts – and abs, apparently. “I just need her to be comfortable with a stranger placing wet plaster on her.”

“I think she got the gist of it when I told her,” Octavia says, and Clarke starts to wonder exactly what she’s told this poor girl and how wise it is to jump into it without meeting her first. But she’s pressed for time, and unless she’s willing to have a meeting at the crack of dawn with Octavia making snarky comments, it’ll have to do. “She’ll be there.”

The elevator doors open and Clarke’s focus shifts from one project to the over, her hand gripping her portfolio case a little tighter, her shoulders rolling back to make her stand a little taller. 

With a “ _ text me about her _ ” that she almost regrets, because she knows Octavia won’t be that helpful and will tell her about her fighting techniques before telling her the girl’s name, and a quick goodbye, Clarke pockets her phone. 

She’ll worry about the logistics of inviting a stranger who knows how to knock Octavia to her knees tomorrow. Right now, she has a meeting that could really jump start her whole career as an artist.

It’s an hour later when she walks out of the building with the sure feeling that she completely blew it.

That meeting was supposed to have people from the most diverse backgrounds and art styles, as collaborative galleries are usually looking to expand their horizons and get more people in to check out  _ more _ art that they might like. Clarke talked about how she’s been doing commissions and selling her art online, working on building her online platform – all that while the artists already in the gallery browsed her portfolio, because that’s not enough pressure.

Between her shaky voice and tardiness, she’s pretty sure she blew that.

She’s dragging her feet by the time she gets home, her body exhausted after all the nervous energy has left her. Clarke has managed to walk to a few stores to grab some things for a last minute idea she had, but not even new brushes and a fancy new paint could cheer her up after ruining her meeting. Kicking her boots out by the door and unbuttoning her jeans on the way to the kitchen, Clarke doesn’t even bother reheating her leftover Chinese food, wolfing it down with a fork. 

It’s a less than great evening. She has some commissions she needs to get started on, and some work she’s finished with that need to be packaged for shipping. But she tells herself she can take the night off. She’s in desperate need of whatever is on TV and lying on the couch until she wakes up in the middle of the night to drag herself to bed.

Halfway through her noodles, Clarke reaches for her phone to look up the TV guide. She’s deciding between putting some documentary on or just leaving it in a cartoon channel when a notification comes through. 

It’s Octavia, with a clearly very annoyed “ _ HELLO?????? _ ”

Clarke opens their message thread and–  _ shit _ . 

She had forgotten to take her phone out of  _ do not disturb _ mode after leaving the and had missed a bunch of texts from Octavia. Scrolling down from the first unread text, Clarke skims each text for anything that might indicate she’s in mortal danger. They start off okay, with Octavia updating her about the fighter girl’s interest in being her model, then getting increasingly more annoyed as Clarke’s lack of response goes on and on and  _ on _ .

Clarke answers with a simple “ _ Hi, I’m alive _ ,” before jumping into an explanation that is half complaining about her day. She’s barely two lines in when another text from Octavia comes through – “ _ Not for long, asshat. _ ”

Stuffing her mouth with as much noodles as it could hold and typing as she chews, Clarke texts Octavia, who has said very little about the fighter girl –  _ Lexa _ , Octavia corrects her after the third time she calls her that. And Clarke asks to know a little more about the girl whose breasts she’s making a cast out of tomorrow. For the sake of having  _ something _ to talk about during the over two hour process, because boxing can only get her so far.

It doesn’t take long to realize Octavia doesn’t really  _ know _ Lexa at all.

“ _ She’s private, _ ” is what Octavia tells Clarke, after she doesn’t believe they can spar almost every single morning and know so little about each other. What kind of private person would be so ready to take part on something like this?

They text for a good while, going from discussing how Clarke and Lexa can keep each other entertained for two whole hours – all of Octavia’s suggestions involve very little working, and a lot of time in bed, which shows how much she does not understand how clinical the casting process is – to arguing over the latest Marvel movie.

By the time Octavia needs to close down the gym, Clarke has all but forgotten about the stranger coming over and stripping down for her the next day. They’ve gotten way too into discussing two particular plot points for either of them to care about much more than scheduling a Marvel movie marathon. But, right before they say their goodbyes, Clarke remembers to ask Octavia what’s the mysterious girl’s full name.

“ _ Lexa Woods. Why, are you gonna look her up on Facebook, you creep? _ ”

Clarke shoots back a dismissive, “ _ Nope, just gotta know what name to scratch on my cupboards in case she murders me _ .” But yes. Yes, she is looking up Lexa on Facebook.

She makes quick work of tidying up her kitchen, throwing the container in the trash and her fork in the sink, before grabbing some water and heading to the living room to grab her laptop from the couch. 

As she waits for her laptop to turn back on, Clarke pops the button of her pants open and falls to the couch, contant to have something to do with her evening. She glances at her phone again, and there’s another text from Octavia that reads, “ _ You’ll be fine, as long as you don’t squeeze her boobies. _ ”

“ _ Hope the whole dumbbell rack falls on you, you asshole.” _ Clarke types out her answer with a smirk on her face. Then she throws her phone across the couch, turns the TV on to some nature documentary she can pay less than half attention to, and opens Facebook.

There’s nothing.

She finds a Lexa Woods, alright. But there’s no information on the bio tab – no hometown, no current work, not what college she went to –, every single photo is private and she isn’t tagged on anything. Her cover photo is a shot from the top of a mountain, rolling hills mixing with fog and low hanging clouds – beautiful, but far from helpful. Even her profile picture was useless. Clarke could barely make out a figure among the tall trees rising above her.

The rest of the night is a blur of trying to find any information about this woman – Clarke got as far as finding her Linkedin profile, but even that was all private and Clarke doesn’t know how to work that social media at all – and crying over penguins tumbling over, falling face first on the snow.

When she wakes up the following day, far too late for it to be considered morning, Clarke is feeling marginally better about the meeting fiasco and starving so much she’s ready to eat whatever she can find. 

She goes out to grab some breakfast – pancakes  _ and _ eggs and bacon, with a cup of coffee tall enough to drown her sorrows – and allows herself enough time to grab her sketchbook and sketch the people walking by the window as her coffee goes cold. It’s a little indulgence. It’s something just for her, that no one else will ever see it. It makes it all the more precious.

Dragging her feet back to her apartment without looking at the time, Clarke goes through the motions of setting the drop cloth down. Casting a mold can get really messy,  _ really _ fast, and it’s just easier to have her apartment looking like a serial killer’s than trying to get dry plaster off her floor.

Once she can’t see most of her living room, Clarke gets the materials she needs for the casting. She mostly uses it to secure the drop cloth on the floor before throwing herself onto the couch and grabbing her sketchbook to polish some drawings she’s gotten down at breakfast.

She barely get five strokes in before her intercom buzzes.

It takes her a moment to get up, thinking it’s probably some delivery guy that rang the wrong apartment. But then she glances at the watch on her wrist – 2pm sharp. Someone is punctual.

“Yeah?” she asks, half out of breath after springing from the couch and launching herself over the kitchen counter.

“This is Lexa,” the answer comes in an even, demanding tone, and it stops there. There’s no follow up, no idle chit chat where she explains why she’s here. Either Clarke knows or doesn’t.

It makes her frown her brows through an smile. “Sure. Come on up.”

Clarke buzzes her in and, in what is almost an afterthought, drags a stool from the kitchen to the middle of the working area. She grabs all the materials from where they were scattered around, places them on the bench serving as her work area, and then there’s a knock on her door.

The woman staring back at her when she opens the door takes her breath away.

In her defense, Clarke weren’t expecting to see someone wearing a three-piece suit.

But there Lexa is, wearing tailored grey pants with a matching vest, the jacket fully open. That detail, combined with the hair falling in curls over one shoulder, gives her an almost casual look – as casual as one can in, again, a three-piece suit. She stands all tall and gorgeous, her hands tucked into her pockets, her chin tilted up.

It definitely has Clarke rethinking the rolled up distressed jeans and white tee.

“You must be Clarke,” Lexa speaks first, because Clarke seems to have momentarily forgotten how to speak. It sparks her attention enough to notice Lexa is talking, but not quite enough for Clarke to catch the way she was pulling her right hand out of her pocket and going in for a handshake.

“Yes! Come in,” Clarke says, snapping out of her trance as she steps aside to open the door more fully. The moment she does, Lexa’s hand drops back down and her eyes dart around from the tarp covered room to the pair of surgical gloves resting on top of a five gallon container. “It looks like a murder scene, doesn’t it? I mean, before the murder takes place,” Clarke attempts a joke and it falls to deaf ears – all blood seems to have left Lexa’s face. “I’m not a killer, I swear. It just– Well, I know it looks that way.”

Clarke wants to kick herself.  _ What was that? _ She has been listening to a shit ton of true crime podcasts while working, and her fight or flight instinct flares up whenever something as dangerous as a bee comes near her. But that’s something she jokes about with a friend.  _ Not _ someone she’s met literally fifteen seconds ago.

She blames it on the suit. She’s never handled herself around women in suits very well.

“I like to think I can defend myself,” Lexa answers, her voice calm and collected, without a hint of the fear Clarke swears she’s seen flash in her eyes a while ago. Her hand is now safely tucked inside her pocket again, and she takes another look around before meeting Clarke’s eyes. “How is this going to work?”

It’s an out that Clarke grabs with both hands.

Because she knows this. She’s in her element as she goes through each step of the process, in as much detail as Lexa seems to need. Clarke explains how she’ll soak the plaster bandages and place them on Lexa’s naked torso, how she’ll have to massage it to make sure it’ll stick together, how long the whole process will take, how she’ll pop it off once the plaster has set. And she makes sure that Lexa knows she should feel free to tell her whatever is wrong – be it a pinching somewhere as the plaster dries or that she wants out, no matter what time.

Lexa nods in a very business like manner, shrugging out of her jacket and placing it carefully on the back of the stool, then starting to undo the five buttons holding her vest in place. She half heartedly folds it and puts on top of the stool, going back to work on getting her button down blouse off.

It makes Clarke launch into an in depth description of how the actual cast making will happen – from the securing the plaster cast back together to what she’ll use to paint the finished piece. It’s rambling and mumbling, it’s trying to keep herself from staring in a less than professional fashion at the way Lexa’s fingers work each button.

“You do need me to strip down, don’t you?” Lexa asks with a smirk tugging one corner of her lips – Clarke is glad she’s amused at how flushed she feels. She’s all the way down to the last three buttons, black bra and tan skin peeking from underneath the fabric.

Clarke snaps her eyes up, finding Lexa’s and gritting her teeth, annoyed at her own actions. “Yes. Yes, I do,” she says with what she hopes is an even voice. “I’ll get some warm water. Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Lexa answers mindlessly, shrugging her blouse off and hanging it under the jacket in a surprisingly careful gesture. 

Clarke is halfway to the bathroom when Lexa reaches behind her to undo the clasp of her bra, and she starts to wonder when the fuck she became so vulnerable to a little skin. It’s like a nude drawing art class, it has the same detached air to it – although she doubts she’ll be as bored and frustrated as she used to be in those classes.

And god dammit, Octavia was right about the abs.

When Clarke comes back with warm water almost splashing over the edges of her bowl, she finds Lexa standing tall, her back straight and almost stiff, the crown of her head reaching out to the ceiling. She’s taken off her shoes, apparently realizing that standing still for a couple hours isn’t the easiest thing to do in heels. It’s an incredible sight, how she doesn’t seem to mind or care that she’s half naked at a stranger’s house.

Clarke hands Lexa a hair tie, managing to mumble something about her tying her hair back. She doesn’t want to get plaster on Lexa’s hair – first, because it’d ruin her mold, but Lexa doesn’t look like the kind of woman who’d take kindly to her hair being ruined.

Lexa nods, takes the hair tie, leans back so all her hair sways and she can grab it all, pile it on top of her head. It takes Clarke a minute to look away and focus on her work area. It’s one thing to have a (very attractive) woman half naked in her apartment so she can work on a project. It’s something completely different to gawk at said woman –  _ that _ is borderline creepy and incredibly unprofessional.

Instead, she focuses on setting up everything she needs. It’s not much. Warm water, plaster strips, scissors. Clarke busies herself cutting a few strips down to a better length so she can pile them up in certain areas that need more support. 

“You’re ready?” Clarke turns around after a minute or so and more than enough plaster strips cut down, finding Lexa with a very neat bun resting on the base of her neck. It’d have taken Clarke an hour and five pairs of hands to get that done.

“Yes,” Lexa answers simply, curt and formal. Then looks at Clarke, probably sees her staring, “Are you?”

It’s threading the line between annoyed and flirty – a line Clarke never knew could exist.

Clarke snatches a little jar from the bench and takes the lip off, avoiding Lexa’s question all together as she places it in between them for her to grab some with her hands. “Spread some petroleum jelly over your front, please.” Lexa does take a little bit in her fingers, and Clarke doesn’t mention how that won’t help at all, just makes a mental note to give her more, “It’ll make it easier to pop the cast off.”

Nodding, Lexa goes back into the jar for some more, and Clarke moves to spread it over her back and sides.

She finds a tattoo.

A spine tattoo. One that goes from the base of her neck to halfway down her waist.

When she walked into her apartment, Lexa did not strike Clarke as someone who’d even dream to have a tattoo, let alone something this big – but then again, Lexa doesn’t come across as someone who likes to fist fight first thing in the morning. From bottom to top, it’s a string of circles, painted grey and dark, resembling moons, connected to a dotted circle outline on the base of her neck by strange symbols Clarke doesn’t recognize. 

It’s beautiful.

It suits her, somehow.

Clarke doesn’t say anything, only focuses on getting down a generous amount of petroleum jelly over all the expanse of her back. Then she goes back to the front to inspect Lexa’s work, adding some more to a few places she missed.

As if something snaps inside of her, Clarke gets into the right mindset. The fact that Lexa has an incredible body and even more incredible breasts goes to the back of her mind, and Clarke can focus on the technical aspects of what she’s doing.

Setting the petroleum jelly jar aside, Clarke grabs a long plaster strip and soaks it in the warm water for a few seconds, running it in between her fingers to get the excess water out of it. Then she moves to Lexa and with a simple, “ _ I’ll start with the first one on your stomach _ ,” as a warning, places the strip across Lexa’s abdomen, right under her breasts.

Clarke knows it’s a weird feeling. She had it done it on herself during art school and it’s like wet paper towels – that will soon turn into cement and suck all the water from the skin. But she still has to bite her lips to keep a grin from coming out when she sees  _ and feels _ the way Lexa’s stomach flutters.

They’re four strips down when Lexa breaks the silence, “How do you know Octavia?”

“Oh, we go way back,” Clarke says, almost automatically, most of her attention still doing to massaging the fifth strip onto the fourth one to make sure they’re sticking together properly and adhering to Lexa’s body, “Our moms are both doctors and they went through residency together, got pregnant around the same time, O and I went to the same daycare, then same school.” She steps back to inspect her handiwork, then glances up at Lexa, “Bellamy is pretty much the older brother I’ve never had.”

“Bellamy?”

Clarke takes a second to answer the question, grabbing one of the shorter strips and soaking it, before placing it on the underside of Lexa’s left breast. There’s a hitch in her breath, and Clarke does quick work of settling the strip into place.

“He’s Octavia’s brother, three years older,” Clarke repeats the process on Lexa’s right breast as she talks, “He’s the same age as Wells, his dad is the chief of surgery in the same hospital our moms still work, and we all grew up together. I think Wells does something at the gym too, he’s all buff and shit.”

Lexa nods, growing thoughtful for a moment – possibly thinking back to her sparring sessions at the gym, trying to match someone to the description. It gives Clarke time to prepare a longer strip and place it across her upper chest to make the edge of the mold.

“You’re chatty,” Lexa says instead, when Clarke leans back to the bench to grab her scissors.

“And you are  _ not _ .” There’s a hint of a smile on her lips as she cuts the strip in between her breasts, smoothing down the edges with her palm. “Does it bother you?”

Doing the closest thing of a shrug she’s able to with the plaster starting to dry, Lexa blinks patiently, “Whatever helps you get the job done.”

“Wait, I’ll put some music on then.” Clarke says, stuffing the scissors in her back pocket and smoothing the plaster around Lexa’s breasts and all the way to the underside and her belly, “Are you okay? Not too tight? Uncomfortable at all?”

“I’m fine,” Lexa answers a little too quickly, but Clarke takes her word for it as she reaches for a rag to take the worst of the plaster from her fingers. 

She goes to the kitchen to turn her bluetooth player on and fiddle with her phone for a moment. It’s hard to get it to respond to her touch, but she manages to find her playlists. She has a bunch of them, each crafted with care and a specific situation in mind – for working out, for painting, for drawing nature scenery, for suffering while coming up with backgrounds, for sex; whatever it is, she has a playlist for it.

“Gay anthems” is the title of the playlist Clarke chooses. It makes her chuckle, but it sounds fitting, if a little crass – she  _ is _ working with boobs, after all.

The vocal starts before the first notes come through when the first song comes up – 1950, by King Princess – and she hops back to her work. She finds Lexa standing ramrod straight still, like the position doesn’t bother her at all, her hands resting on her waist the only sign it might be getting tiresome, but it still leaves Clarke enough space to work.

They don’t talk for a while.

The song fills the silence as Clarke works the plaster strips into layers over Lexa’s torso, mouthing the words for the chorus and a few of her favorite verses. Clarke sees Lexa’s steady breathing, a little shallow, a little constricted – which is expected, considering she has a good pound of plaster resting on her breasts and around her ribcage alone. 

When the next song starts, Clarke makes a point to walk around Lexa and work on thickening up the layer on her back. While the first song was a gentle nod to queerness, Jen Foster is less than subtle when she goes on to say she didn't just kiss her, that they went all the way and she liked it. Still humming the song to herself, Clarke works fast on the last of the warm water she has.

Third song starts, more cheery and upbeat than the last too, as Clarke excuses herself out to the bathroom away. Jill Sobule talking about kissing a girl has Clarke wondering if she should choose something less aggressive when she has a woman half naked in her living room – who doesn’t look like it, but might as well be straight, for all the information she has about Lexa.

“Do you want me to change the playlist?” Clarke asks, as inconspicuously as she can manage, settling the bowl with water on the floor to work faster on the abdomen part of the mold. Octavia  _ really _ wasn’t lying about the abs, Clarke swears she can feel it even under three layers of plaster.

“I’ve been enjoying this one,” Lexa answers, giving a half answer. But it hasn’t escaped her attention of oh how gay all the songs are, because she quirks an eyebrow and looks down at Clarke, “Why do you ask?”

“Dunno,” Clarke shrugs, reaching out for a few plaster strips on the bench as she sinks to her knees. “I figured you were more of a classical only kind of gal. Do you want something to keep plaster from getting on your pants? It’s washable, but you know.”

“I don’t mind it. Neither the plaster not the classical music,” Lexa says, positioning her hands lower on her hips to give Clarke access to the strip of skin right above her hips, “But I’m not contrary to these women singing about their love for other women.”

So. She noticed it.

Clarke can’t keep herself from smiling and before she knows it, before she realizes she and Lexa do not know each other that well, she’s looking up and winking at Lexa.

She looks back down, focusing on soaking another plaster strip before she has the chance to see the look on Lexa’s face. The next song starts – girl in red’s  _ I wanna be your girlfriend _ – as she walks on her knees to Lexa’s backside, to work on righting the edge there as well.

“Why are you doing this?” Lexa asks, breaking the silence that Clarke hoped to every god wasn’t awkward of heavy, “I know it’s for a breast foundation, but do you have any reason other than being an artist?”

Clarke is more than ready to answer that, glad to jump from a potentially awkward situation to a big downer, “My mom. She had breast cancer a few years back.”

“I’m sorry.” Lexa sounds genuinely sympathetic, if a little worried she walked into something touchy.

“It’s okay. She’s better now,” Clarke is quick to assure Lexa as she massages a new plaster strip onto her side, “But honestly, it’s only because she caught it early. It was an aggressive little shit. Not everyone knows how to check themselves, what to look for or what to go to the doctor’s for. So whatever I can do to help.”

Clarke feels the need to ask Lexa if  _ she _ knows how to check herself for any lumps or weird things, but it seems too awkward to do it now, when the plaster is starting to harden around Lexa’s chest, no doubt making it hard to breathe. She’ll give her some flyers before Lexa leaves, that’ll do.

Lexa hums, nodding before she speaks again. “That’s very thoughtful, Clarke.”

Oh. The way Lexa says her name oh so casually, thrown into a sentence that didn’t really need to have her name there, makes something inside Clarke churns. Maybe it’s the way her tongue catches on the second syllable, maybe it’s something in her voice.

“Besides, painting on boobs is never a bad thing,” Clarke says, breaking any tension with a goddamn joke, because  _ of course she would _ . She gets up and settles the bowl back on the bench, and winks –  _ winks  _ – yet again at Lexa. As Raven would put it, she’s a bisexual disaster today. “Even if I like better when I get to paint directly on the skin.”

“My ex tried to paint my back once, and what was supposed to be a sunset turned into muddy swirls only,” Lexa says as Clarke picks up an extra long piece of wet plaster to make sure everything stays in place. It’s the most Lexa has shared about herself so far. “She didn’t really know how to paint, but it sure felt nice,”

“ _ Oh _ ,” is all Clarke can get out, the pronoun Lexa used clicking with her, making her  _ very _ aware of how firm her touch is on Lexa’s breasts. Well. So there’s that. “What do you do for work?”

Clarke wants to dig a hole and make it her new permanent residency. What kind of question is that? And why the fuck was it following Lexa’s reveal of being very much into women?

But Lexa doesn’t seem to mind answering, following the change of topic without a hitch, “I’m a public affairs consultant.”

“Sounds boring,” is the first thing out of Clarke’s mouth, who’s apparently comfortable enough with Lexa to sass her. 

Lexa scoffs. “It’s  _ not _ .”

“Then tell me what’s so interesting about that,” Clarke says, looking at Lexa with almost an almost coy glance as she gets ready to start applying another layer of plaster.

While Clarke works and wlw songs play in the background, Lexa talks. She explains what she does and goes into detail about the tricky business it is, and rolls her eyes when Clarke asks if she’s a lobbyist – which, considering what Lexa said, she  _ is _ .

Their conversation shift effortlessly between topics – funny anecdotes Lexa has about her work, how she started going to the gym, why Clarke has never gone, and Lexa even gets some light dirt on Octavia, which Clarke knows will get back to her – as Clarke builds up one layer after the other, making sure the cast will come out alright.

Once all the plaster strips have made their way onto Lexa, enough to make her struggle to breathe a little bit, Clarke offers another stool for her to sit on, grabs one for herself. 

They still have half an hour to kill before Clarke can remove the cast.

Clarke gets them some La Croix, which clearly adds another stroke to the painting Lexa seems to be making of her, and they sit down together to wait for the plaster to dry out. Clarke bounces ideas off of Lexa, adjusting her idea of what she’ll paint the finished piece. She had settled on something, but Lexa – who has an absurd knowledge of art history for someone who works in  _ lobbying _ – shifts it one way and another.

By the time they both get up and Clarke grabs her scissors, her mind has changed completely, a new image forming, replacing her set idea. 

Her mind has changed in more than once way this afternoon.

Clarke cuts a zigzag pattern up the back of the plaster, where the layers are thinner, to make it easier to put it back together later. It takes them a little while to wiggle Lexa out of the cast, despite the generous amount of petroleum jelly they applied before.

Between stretches and deep breaths, Clarke is able to pluck it out, setting it on the bench as she nods towards the bathroom. Lexa has quite a bit of plaster on her, mostly splatters she’ll need to scrub off, but some water will get the worst of it.

If Clarke finds herself breathing a little easier when she sees that Lexa has taken her bra and shirt to the bathroom with her, she tells herself she’s just relieved the cast is done and ready to be filled with gesso. She might make her deadline after all.

She hears the soft padding of bare foot against the floor and turns around, finding Lexa buttoning the last of her shirt before tucking it back inside her pants. That have so many splatters Clarke hopes she’s done with work for the day.

“I left your hair tie on the sink,” Lexa says, running her fingers through her hair and piling the curls on her shoulder.

“Okay, thanks,” Clarke nods, getting up from her crouched position where she was inspecting her handiwork, “And thank you for doing this. I know it’s a hard thing to do for a stranger, so thank you.”

“You made it easier,” Lexa says, the hint of a smile gracing her lips. She slips her heels back and picks up her jacket – she looks far too put together for someone who had plaster all over her ten minutes ago. “Will you send me a picture when you’re finished painting?”

Clarke nods. They’ve trades phone numbers somewhere around Clarke saying Octavia is a clingy drunk. Lexa swore she’d be one to pick up fights, and Clarke asked for her number so she could send her photographic proof – a smooth move, if Clarke says so herself.

Sinking her heels to the floor when Lexa wraps her fingers around the doorknob, Clarke shoots her shot before she even has time to form a game plan, “I usually ask this before I see a girl’s boobs, but would you like to grab a coffee?”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sassymajesty). You're all more than welcome to reach out and send me a message - it can be all yelling, I swear I don't mind as long as you're nice. 
> 
> On Tumblr, you can find sneak peeks for upcoming chapters, as well as other tidbits, like gifsets and oh, spoilers I give in whatever message that gives me room for it! And if you want to know more about my writing and other stories, I put everything together in a page [here](http://sassymajesty.tumblr.com/writing)!


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